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sterility

   Also found in: Medical, Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.04 sec.
ster·ile  (strl, -l)
adj.
1. Not producing or incapable of producing offspring.
2.
a. Not producing or incapable of producing seed, fruit spores, or other reproductive structures. Used of plants or their parts.
b. Producing little or no vegetation; unfruitful: sterile land.
3. Free from live bacteria or other microorganisms: a sterile operating area; sterile instruments.
4. Lacking imagination, creativity, or vitality.
5. Lacking the power to function; not productive or effective; fruitless: a sterile discussion.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sterilis.]

sterile·ly adv.
sterile·ness, ste·rili·ty (st-rl-t) n.
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.sterility - (of non-living objects) the state of being free of pathogenic organisms
sanitariness - the state of being conducive to health
2.sterilitysterility - the state of being unable to produce offspring; in a woman it is an inability to conceive; in a man it is an inability to impregnate
physical condition, physiological condition, physiological state - the condition or state of the body or bodily functions
impotence, impotency - an inability (usually of the male animal) to copulate
barrenness - the state (usually of a woman) of having no children or being unable to have children
cacogenesis - inability to produce hybrids that are both viable and fertile
dysgenesis - infertility between hybrids

sterility
noun
1. infertility, childlessness, infecundity (technical) This disease causes sterility in both males and females.
Translations
sterility [steˈrɪlɪtɪ] Nesterilidad f
sterility [stəˈrɪləti] n
[dressing, equipment, water] → stérilité f
(= infertility) [person, animal] → stérilité f
[debate, relationship, statistics] → stérilité f
sterility
n
(of animal, soil)Unfruchtbarkeit f; (of person also)Sterilität f; (fig: = fruitlessness also) → Ergebnislosigkeit f
(= absence of contamination, fig) → Sterilität f
sterility [stɛˈrɪlɪtɪ] nsterilità
sterility [stɛˈrɪlɪtɪ] nsterilità


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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
And this is the dissolution:-- In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space.
He reproaches his former colleagues with being sterile and shows them that their sterility is the result of their not believing in anything.
He is an illustration of the period of culture in which the faculty of appreciation has obtained such a preponderance over that of production that the latter sinks into a kind of rank sterility, and the mental condition becomes analogous to that of a malarious bog.
 
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